Festival Steward Crew

On this page you can find out about what the Buddhafield Festival Steward Crew does, what we need you to be able to commit to and how to volunteer.

As well as earning yourself a ticket plus all your food while on site, being part of the steward crew can be a lot of fun, with many people coming back to do it again year after year.

So what is stewarding exactly?

Stewards help to look after everyone at the festival. Key roles include: welcoming and processing new arrivals at the gate; directing people so as to ensure safety in the campsites and other areas; and helping marshal any on-site traffic.

No special skills are required and we provide any training you may need, although if you wish to steward with us you would need to be:

Stewarding does not include either preparing crew food or doing heavy physical work (such as putting up structures). If you’re looking to do either of these things, please apply to the Café Crew or Site Crew.

Most people find Buddhafield stewarding a very enjoyable experience, however in offering to help in this way you would still be taking on a job of work which may be quite busy and demanding at times, so please consider this when applying.

What we offer

We offer a ticket to the festival, whatever vehicle passes you need, and all your food will be provided (including tea and coffee) in exchange for a maximum of 30 hours help spread across the course of the event.

You will be working in the same team of a dozen or so people throughout. Shifts are at most 6 hours long. All food provided will be vegan. There are no overnight shifts.

If you arrive on the Friday before the festival and work as a steward during set up, you will do a maximum of 35 hours volunteering and get all your shifts out of the way early, being completely free for the festival itself from Thursday onwards.

Deposit

Like most festivals, we ask all first-time stewards to pay a returnable deposit in advance. So, if we offer you a place, we’ll ask you to send us a cheque to the value of one adult ticket. This will not be cashed and will be returned to you promptly at the end of the festival, so long as you turn up on time and do all of your shifts. We’ll be reasonable should for instance you become ill during the event. Similarly, if for any reason it turns out you are no longer able to come, we’ll also not cash your cheque, so long as you let us know at least one week before the festival.

A Word about Alcohol and Drugs

We don’t wish to judge people’s views on this — and hope it won’t put you off applying! And if this would be a new way of experiencing a festival for you then why not give it a try?! However please bear in mind that if you choose to work with us, then we’d like this policy to be respected.

More Festival Links

We regret that we cannot guarantee that any specific actvity, workshop or performer described will be available on the day, or that the site layout will not change to accommodate unforseen circumstances.